[27.07] Can the Leonid meteors tell us if comets have chondrules and CAIs?

Studies of the Leonid meteor showers over the past few years
have yielded a wealth of results relevant to the structure
and composition of cometary solids. One of our goals is to
test the existence of chondrules and Ca-Al-rich inclusions
(CAIs) in comets based on meteor observations.
Chondrule-sized objects would be too faint to study in most
meteor showers, but the high velocity (~72 km/sec) of the
Leonids (comet Tempel-Tuttle) make these small objects
produce meteors in the range of Vmag +3 or +4. There is
little consensus about the formation mechanisms for
chondrules and CAIs. However, one prominent model (the
"X-wind" model [1]) explicitly predicts that chondrules and
CAIs will be present in comets. Hence, observational
constraints on the presence or absence of chondrules and
CAIs in comet Tempel-Tuttle are likely to contribute to a
better understanding of their formation process.

[1] F. H. Shu et al. (2001) ApJ. 548, 1029.

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